Beautiful Bastard

  She distracted me endlessly, and what bothered me was that it was different here than usual. It was work, but it was a completely new world, one where we could pretend our circumstances were whatever we wanted them to be. The itch to be near her was even greater than it was when I had to keep my distance. Looking back to the evening keynote speaker at the podium, I tried unsuccessfully once again to redirect my thoughts to something productive. I was sitting up front, I had given the keynote last year at this very conference, and yet I somehow couldn’t find a way to engage.

  I saw her shift in my peripheral vision and instinctively I looked across the table at her. When our eyes met, every other sound blended together, floating around me but never breaking into my consciousness. Without thinking, I leaned toward her, she leaned toward me, and a tiny grin flickered across her mouth.

  I thought about this morning, and how transparent she’d been in her panic. By contrast, I’d felt strangely calm, as if everything we’d done had been leading to that precise moment when we could both see how easy it was to just be.

  A cell phone ringing somewhere behind me broke me from my trance, causing me to look away. Quickly sitting back in my chair, I was shocked to see how far forward I’d actually been leaning. I looked around and stopped dead as a pair of unfamiliar eyes met mine.

  This stranger had no idea who we were, or that Chloe worked for me; he’d only glanced at us and quickly looked away. But in that moment, every bit of guilt I’d been suppressing hit me. Everyone knew who I was, no one here knew her, and if it ever got out that we were fucking, the judgment of an entire community would follow her around for the rest of her career.

  A quick glance back at Chloe told me she could see panic written all over my face. I spent the rest of the lecture staring forward, not giving her another glance.

  “Are you okay?” she asked in the elevator, breaking the heavy silence that had accompanied us for fourteen floors.

  “Yeah, just . . .” I scratched the back of my neck and avoided her eyes. “Just thinking.”

  “I’m going out with some friends tonight.”

  “That sounds like a good idea.”

  “You have dinner with Stevenson and Newberry at seven. I think they’re meeting you at that sushi place you like in the Gaslamp.”

  “I know,” I said, relaxing as we fell into the familiar details of work. “What’s their assistant’s name again? She always comes.”

  “Andrew.”

  I looked over at her, confused. “That’s a touch manlier than I was expecting.”

  “They have a new assistant.”

  How on earth did she know that?

  She smiled. “He was sitting next to me at the keynote and asked if I’d be at the dinner tonight.”

  I wondered if his was the pair of unfamiliar eyes that caught me staring at Chloe, and he asked because of the way I looked at her. I stuttered out a few sounds before she interrupted me. “I told him I had other plans.”

  My unease returned. I wanted her with me tonight, and soon she wouldn’t be my intern anymore. Could I be her lover then? Could I still be her boss now? “Did you want to come?”

  She shook her head, looking up at the doors as we reached the thirtieth floor. “I think I should probably go do my own thing.”

  The short drive back from the restaurant was quiet and lonely, with only my jumbled thoughts to keep me company. I made my way through the large lobby to the elevator, and robotically moved to Chloe’s room before remembering I wasn’t actually staying with her. I couldn’t remember which room was mine and tried three on the floor before giving up and checking back in at the reception desk. When I returned, I realized my room was just next to hers.

  It was a mirror image of her room, but completely different in all of the ways that couldn’t be seen. This shower hadn’t washed away our pretenses last night; we hadn’t slept together, curled around each other in this bed. These walls hadn’t been filled with the sounds of her coming apart beneath me. This desk wasn’t broken from a late-morning quickie.

  I checked my phone and saw that I had two missed calls from my brother. Great. Normally, I would have already spoken to my father and brother several times, telling them about meetings or potential clients I’d met. So far, I hadn’t talked to either of them once. I’d been afraid they would see right through me and know that my head was not in the game this week.

  It was after eleven and I wondered if she was still with her friends, or was she back already? Maybe she was lying there awake, obsessing about all of the same things I was. Without thinking, I reached for the phone and dialed her room. It rang four times before a generic voice mail answered. I hung up and tried her cell.

  She answered on the first ring. “Mr. Ryan?”

  I winced. She was with other students. Of course she wouldn’t call me Bennett now. “Hi. I . . . um, was just making sure you had a way to get back to the hotel.”

  Her laugh came through the line, muted by the sound of voices and the pulsing of loud music all around her. “There are about seventy cabs waiting outside. I’ll just grab one of those when we’re done.”

  “When will that be?”

  “When Melissa finishes this drink and probably another. And when Kim decides she’s done dancing with every filthy manwhore here. So you can expect me back sometime between now and tomorrow morning at eight.”

  “Are you being a wiseass?” I asked, feeling a grin spread across my face.

  “Yes.”

  “Fine,” I said, exhaling heavily. “Just text me when you get back safe.”

  She was quiet for a beat and then said, “I will.”

  I hung up and dropped my phone on the bed beside me, staring at the floor for probably an hour. I didn’t even know what to do with myself.

  Finally, I got up and walked back downstairs.

  I was still in the lobby when she came back at two in the morning, cheeks bright and smile firmly in place as she dropped her phone into her purse. My phone buzzed in my hand and I glanced down.

  I’m back safe.

  I watched her walk past the reception desk and directly toward where I sat near the bank of elevators. She stopped when she saw me, bleary-eyed, in my rumpled suit. I was sure my hair was a fucking joke because I’d been worried sick. I suddenly had no idea what I was doing waiting for her like an anxious spouse. I only knew I couldn’t be the one to decide we wouldn’t work, because deep down, I wanted to figure it out.

  “Bennett?” she said, glancing at her friend, who waved and walked to the elevator. I didn’t give a damn what the friend was thinking, but I could feel her stare on us until she got into the elevator.

  Chloe was wearing a tiny black dress and heels I wanted to petition become a uniform until her internship ended. Thin straps crisscrossed all the way from her pink-painted toes midway up her shins. I wanted to peel the dress from her body and fuck her into the couch, gripping those heels for leverage.

  “Hey,” I mumbled, mesmerized by the miles and miles of bare leg in front of me.

  She walked closer, stopping just a few inches away. “What are you doing down here?”

  “Waiting.”

  I struggled to hide how she affected me, how my present thoughts could barely be torn from the fantasy of my fists in her hair, the way my thumbs could completely cover her small, pink nipples, or how her clit was the softest part of any body I’d ever touched. I wanted to taste her from her toes to her earlobes, telling her every thought I had on the way.

  “Are you drunk?”

  I shook my head. Not the way you mean. “Someone saw me looking at you earlier.”

  “I know.” She reached up, ran her fingers through my hair. “At the keynote. I saw your face.”

  “I panicked.”

  Chloe didn’t say anything in response to that; she just laughed, a soft husky sound.


  “I’m not worried about how it looks for me. I’m worried about how it looks for you,” I said.

  I heard her sharp inhale, felt her fingers tighten in my hair. When I looked up at her face, she looked bewildered.

  How could she not know how infatuated I’d become? I was sure she could see it every time I looked at her. As always, I wanted to grip her from behind, spank her when she made a sound. Pull her hair when I came. Bite her breast again. Drag my teeth over her spine. Pinch the back of her thigh and then smooth it over with the softest touch.

  But I also wanted to watch her sleep, and then watch her wake up and see me, and gauge her feelings from that first, unfiltered reaction.

  I was starting to see that this wasn’t just sex, and it wasn’t just working something out of my system. Sex was just the fastest route to the deeper possession I needed. I was falling in love with her, and falling too fast and hard to easily find any footing.

  It was scary as fuck.

  I decided to give her the truth.

  “I need another night.”

  She sucked in a breath and stared, and only then did it occur to me that she could be feeling something very different than I was.

  “Feel free to say no. I just . . .” I ran a hand through my hair and looked up at her. “I just would really like to be with you again tonight.”

  “Greedy, aren’t you?”

  “You have no idea.”

  Upstairs in her room, between her sheets, and with her body coiled tight and sweet, sucking me in, everything else slipped away. Her scent and noises clouded my brain, made my thrusting erratic and hard. She was drenched—all of her: skin outside and flesh inside, slick and pulling me deeper. Her legs clamped around my hips and she flipped me over with a laugh, riding me with her back arched away and her head thrown back, fingers digging in my abdomen, anchoring herself in me. Her skin shone and I sat up underneath her, needing to feel the slide of her chest over mine as she slithered and slid. I pushed her back again, hovering over her once more this time with her legs on my shoulders and her mouth quivering as she struggled to find words.

  Her nails dug into my back and I hissed, telling her “more” and “yes” and wanting her to mark me, to leave something that would still be there tomorrow.

  She came once, and then again, and once more, and pulled at her hair, looking wild and untamed. I collapsed on her, incoherently stringing words together as I came, trying to tell her what we both already knew: that whatever happened outside of this room was irrelevant.

  Sixteen

  We slowly returned from orbit, and with limbs tangled in the sheets, talked for hours about our day, about the meeting with Gugliotti, about his dinner and my night out with friends. We talked about the broken desk, and that I only packed enough underwear for a week, so he couldn’t ruin any more.

  We talked about everything except the havoc he was wreaking on my heart.

  I ran a finger down his chest and he stilled it with his hand, bringing it to his lips and saying, “It’s nice to talk to you.”

  I laughed, pushing his hair off his forehead. “You talk to me every day. And when I say talk, I mean yell. Shout. Slam doors. Pout—”

  With his fingertips, he drew spirals over my bare stomach, distracting me. “You know what I mean.”

  I did. I knew exactly what he meant, and I wanted to find a way to stretch this moment, right there, into eternity. “So tell me something.”

  He raised his eyes to my face, smiling a little nervously. “What do you want to know?”

  “Honestly? I think I want to know everything. But let’s start small. Give me the history of Bennett’s women.”

  He ran a long finger across his eyebrow and repeated in a laugh, “Let’s start small. Riiiight.” He cleared his throat and then looked at me. “A few in high school, some in college, some in grad school. Some after grad school. And then, one long-term relationship when I lived in France.”

  “Details?” I twisted a strand of his hair around my finger, hoping I wasn’t pushing him too much.

  But to my surprise, he answered without hesitation. “Her name was Sylvie. She was an attorney at a small firm in Paris. We were together for three years and broke up a few months before I moved home.”

  “Was that why you moved home?”

  A smile tugged at one corner of his mouth. “No.”

  “Did she break your heart?”

  The smile turned into a full-on smirk directed at me. “No, Chloe.”

  “Did you break hers?” Why was I even asking this? Did I want him to say—yes? I knew he was capable of breaking hearts. I was actually fairly certain he would break mine.

  He bent to kiss me then, sucking on my lower lip for a few moments before whispering, “No. We just didn’t work anymore. My romantic life was entirely without drama. Until you.”

  I laughed. “Happy to change up the pattern.”

  I could feel his laugh in the vibrations along my skin as he kissed up my neck. “And oh, you do.” Long fingers made their way down my stomach, to my hips, and finally, between my legs. “Your turn.”

  “To have an orgasm? Yes, please.”

  He circled a lazy finger around my clit before sliding it inside me. He knew my body better than I did. When did that happen?

  “No,” he murmured. “Your turn to spill your history.”

  “No way can I think about anything when you’re doing that.”

  With a kiss to my shoulder, he moved his hand back to my stomach, drawing circles there once again.

  I pouted but he missed it, watching his fingers on me instead. “God, there have been so many men, where will I ever begin?”

  “Chloe,” he warned.

  “A couple in high school, one in college.”

  “You’ve only had sex with three men?”

  I pulled back to look at him. “Hello, Einstein. I’ve had sex with four men.”

  A cocky grin spread across his face. “Right. And am I the best by an embarrassingly wide margin?”

  “Am I?”

  His grin disappeared, and he blinked, surprised. “Yes.”

  It was sincere. It made something inside me melt into a tiny, warm hum. I reached to kiss his chin, trying to hide what that information did to me. “Good.”

  Kissing along his shoulder, I moaned happily. I loved his taste, loved to inhale that clean, sage smell of his. Digging my fingers into his hair, I tugged him down so I could nibble at his jaw, his neck, his shoulders. He held himself very still, propped over me, very clearly not kissing me back.

  The hell?

  He inhaled to speak and then closed his mouth again. Somehow I managed to drag my mouth away long enough to ask, “What?”

  “I realize you think I’m just a filthy manwhore, but it does actually matter to me.”

  “What matters to—?”

  “I want to hear you to say it.”

  I stared at him, and he stared back, irises growing a familiar shade of angry brown-green. Mentally rifling through the last few minutes, I tried to understand what he was talking about.

  Oh. “Oh. Yes.”

  His brows pulled together. “Yes, what, Miss Mills?”

  Heat pulsed through me. His voice was different when he said that. Sharp. Commanding. Hot as hell. “Yes, you’re the best by a very embarrassing margin.”

  “That’s better.”

  “At least so far.”

  He rolled on top of me, grabbing my wrists and pinning them above my head. “Don’t tease.”

  “Don’t tease? Please,” I said, breathless. His cock pressed into my thigh. I wanted it higher. I wanted it pushing inside me. “Teasing is all we do.”

  As if to prove me wrong, he reached down, grabbing his length and guiding himself into me, pulling my leg around his hip. Holding very still, he stared
down at me. His upper lip twitched.

  “Please move,” I whispered.

  “You’d like that?”

  “Yes.”

  “And if I don’t?”

  I bit my lip, tried to glare at him.

  He smiled, growling, “This is teasing.”

  “Please?” I tried to move my hips but he followed my movements so I couldn’t gain any friction.

  “Chloe, I never tease you. I fuck the sense out of you.”

  I laughed, and his eyes fell closed when I did, my body constricting him even more.

  “Not that you have much sense to begin with,” he said, biting my neck. “Now tell me how good I make you feel.” Something in his voice, some vulnerability or dip in its strength as the sentence ended told me he wasn’t playing around.

  “No one has ever made me come before. Not with hands or mouth or anything else.”

  He’d been holding still before, though the telltale signs of strain had been apparent; his shoulders trembled and his breath came out in shallow pants, as if his entire body wanted to explode into a wild tangle in the sheets. But when I said this, he completely froze. “No one?”

  “Only you.” I stretched to nibble his jaw. “I’d say that puts you a bit ahead of the field.”

  He exhaled my name as his hips moved back and then forward. And again back and forward. The conversation was done; his mouth found mine, and then my chin, and my jaw, and my ears. His hand moved up my side, to my breast, and finally to my face.

  And when I thought we were both lost to the rhythm and I could feel my climax just beyond me, but so close, and I dug both heels into his ass, needing more, and faster, and all of him, he whispered, “I wish I’d known that.”

  “Why?” I managed, an exhale carrying the sound barely past my lips. Faster, my body screamed. More. “Would it have changed how big an asshole you were?”